


The Pathos of Things

by somegunemojis



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M, may be mentions of others but it's mostly just these two, sai is trans, there are some sex scenes in here, this is mostly just them being terrible in a long series of short drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 11,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: What’s your passion? Do even you know?





	1. think on it

**Author's Note:**

> these and more are all posted on my tumblr (mononoavvare) in response to asks sent by my dear friend robyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: what's your passion? do you even know?
> 
> or,
> 
> another bump in the road to becoming human

          the question stops him in his tracks, halfway into a coat that’s just a little too heavy for the season, one shoe half on. the stillness of the apartment in the white light of the moon is eerie, washing them both out to ivory and dull grey, their shadows nothing but a long nightmarish tangle on the front door. sai turns, remains crouched, and doesn’t jump when sasuke is a lot closer than he’d thought. he cranes his neck to look up at him and blinks eyes as dark as ink blankly at the other man’s shadowed face. 

          the question irks him, and he can parse his feelings well enough at this point that he knows why. it’s a criticism, coming from sasuke, and one that hits him a little close to home. 

          because he  _ **doesn’t**_ , really. have a passion that is, or if he does, he hasn’t figured it out yet. the thought that maybe the foundation did succeed in ripping the soul out of him shouldn’t bother him, but it does. art doesn’t count, as he uses it as a weapon. his love of his companions doesn’t count, because he doesn’t know if it’s actual real  _love_  or if it’s an attachment he’s formed because he takes comfort in the protection of being cared about, the almost absolute assurance of life. 

          his jaw clenches, just the slightest shift in shadow, but he knows sasuke’s eyes are sharp enough to catch it. 

          he can’t think of a single thing, not one, in this moment, and that just makes him… angry. it makes him angry that sasuke decided to ask him this, the thought that maybe he hasn’t progressed into as much of a person as he’d thought, that maybe all this consumption, the sex, the alcohol, the adrenaline and the fighting, maybe it’s him covering up the fact: there’s nothing else to him. there’s nothing else, and the sooner he realizes it, the sooner everyone else realizes it, the sooner he’ll fade back into the shadows. he won’t eat, he won’t sleep, he won’t speak, all he’ll do is fightkilldie and there will be no point to it, just following orders and –

          sai’s fists are clenched so hard he’s sure he broke skin, so he carefully unfolds his fingers from where his nails have torn into his palm, and turns to finish putting on his shoes. it’s safer. it’s easier to breathe. the simple task lets him breathe again, and he realizes his eyes are sandpapery, dry, itchy. he wonders how long he spent staring at sasuke without blinking or breathing, and ruthlessly strangles the wash of embarrassment bubbling up his throat, something like nausea, something like panic-fear-rage and bile. 

          normally he would respond with something witty, something cutting, but he finds himself drawing a blank on that too. he can’t even muster up a smooth goodbye, just an awkward shoulder shrug and a jerky wave as he makes his way to the door for a hasty exit. his fingers shake when they hit the doorknob. 


	2. burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: wanderer on a scorched path
> 
> or,
> 
> you die or you die, dude. you either die or you die.

          embers float by on a smokey breeze. sunk low to the ground, on his knees in the grass-dirt-turned-ash-glass, the smoke doesn’t bother with him, floating up, up, massing in the sky like an angry thunder cloud. sai cannot breathe because of the blood in his lungs. specks of golden fire drift past him, one landing on the bare skin of his arm, and he doesn’t react to the burn, just staggers to his feet with a single, wet, wrenching cough in the strange roaring silence that fills the air. 

         it is him, and it is the distant crackle of flames, a battle gone too far and turned into a wildfire. he needs to – he needs to alert someone, evacuate any civilians and get some suiton users out here to put out the flames but. but first he has to take a few steps, and then a few more. he is walking, now, though his feet drag and kick up clouds of ash with every step. trying to time his ragged breaths with every step proves fruitless, so he just sucks them down whenever his body allows, trying to ignore the body-panic-response of having liquid in the lungs. 

          the right foot catches on something, and he goes down again, silent despite the burst of pain that leaves him blacked out in the dust. seconds, minutes, hoursdaysweeks later he opens his eyes, vision hazy from bloodloss and the sweat and dust leaking through the lids, tearducts trying to clear the debris. his hand twitches, tacky with blood-ash paste, and sai thinks … maybe he will die here, in the closest thing he’s experienced to an actual burning hell. the single burst of bitter laughter chokes him, the drama of it all is just. annoying. he doesn’t want to end here. 

          sai is working on getting his disobedient elbows under him when a dark figure appears in the smoke. he must make a noise, because it turns to him and approaches, becoming more material with every step, and.  

          the sword is at least familiar. 


	3. finding out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: it's not that he wants to cuddle. you just happen to be laying exactly where he wants to lay.
> 
> or,
> 
> settling into your skin takes some time

          the sudden press of skin drags him out of a daze, the room and its details coming back into focus razor-sharp. sasuke is half on top of him, face pressed into his neck, and sai has to viciously bite off the urge to shrug him off, to roll away. it’s too much, too much contact, too much to  _feel_ , physically and emotionally, and he doesn’t  _want_  sasuke to make him feel like this. but the other man always gets … strange, when sai leaves right after. yamato says sometimes people feel used when they have to spend their post-coital bliss with a cold space in their bed, and. well. 

          sasuke usually passes out pretty quickly. he can stay for now. 

          this position is going to take some adjusting, though, because being pinned down like this is pushing his heart into his throat. so he shifts, rolls onto his side, and throws an arm and a leg over sasuke, winding those limbs around him like iron bands, squeezing, squeezing, and he hides a small smile in sasuke’s hair at the indignant noises being made. he releases him before this turns into an actual wrestling session, instead running a soothing palm over sasuke’s side. 


	4. yeah yeah yeah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: There’s nothing you can do to me I wouldn’t do to myself.
> 
> or,
> 
> they have sex, not for the first time, not for the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they fuck and there's some light choking. be safe out there kids.

         sai isn’t sure why sasuke feels the need to egg him on when they’re like this, his thighs clamped around sasuke’s waist and his fingers tracing a sticky collarbone, but he finds it amusing anyway. they both know he’s going to end up with his fingers wrapped around his throat at some point in the night, there’s no need to rush. and so the comment is met with dry smile, a head tilt, and, cruelly, he pauses the tortuous roll of his hips. 

          the fingers on his collarbone slide to grip his chin, tip his face up, and his free hand rests on the back of the couch as he leans forward, looms over sasuke, odd smile still firmly in place. the slight change in position feels  _good_ , but his expression doesn’t flicker. “you know,” he says, fingers now trailing lazily along his jaw and down over the pulse point on his neck, and if he clamped his hand down now he could throw his whole weight into it, poised above him like this. “autoerotic asphyxiation is dangerous, uchiha. sometimes your body just forgets it needs oxygen when you’re chasing that high, and there’s no one around to save you when you black out.” and what an embarrassing way to go, he thinks. he’s framed a few deaths to look that way. the tone turns wry, playful. “you should call me next time.” 

          his hand settles at the base of sasuke’s throat, thumb and fingers spread, slides it up, up, fits it underneath sasuke’s jaw. dark eyes, half lidded, watch his face carefully, reading and filing away microexpressions, reactions, hitches in his breathing. his fingers tighten, barely, and then he sets his hips to moving once more, almost thoughtfully.

          “you’ll have to be patient to get your reward, sasuke-kun. can you be good for me?”


	5. love? love??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: i don't hate you.
> 
> or,
> 
> stating the obvious doesn't make you brave

          sai pauses, carefully puts the whetstone and the kunai in his hands on the side table next to his couch, and leans back so he’s slumped into the cushions. only then does he turn his head to give sasuke a blank look, unimpressed for all that there’s no real substance to it, and he sets a hand on his forehead. his gaze flickers throughout the room, to where sasuke’s sandals are haphazardly strewn next to his own in the entry, to where sasuke’s shirt is in the doorway to his bathroom, to the house slippers he bought specifically for sasuke that are resting on the floor at the foot of the couch, to the takeout that sasuke bought them because sai bought last time. then he looks at sasuke again, expression unmoved. 

          sai isn’t a complete idiot, okay, he knows what this is. this is sasuke’s version of ‘i might be in love with you’, and it’s … disappointing. he didn’t think he was the type of person that needed to hear words to know, but he also didn’t think that sasuke was a coward, or the type to half-ass things. 

          he doesn’t have anything to say to ‘i don’t hate you’. sai knows he doesn’t hate him. so he just pats him on the chest and turns back to his task.

               “don’t be like that, i let you cum all over my face an hour ago.”


	6. fizzle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: I don't want to see you anymore.
> 
> or,
> 
> sasuke chickens out, sai loses it

          it’s midmorning, they’re late for their team meeting this morning by almost an hour. sai can’t stop tracing a thumb across sasuke’s fine cheekbone, lazy trails in post-coital bliss. the smug look he usually wears is absent, gone in favor of a hazy smile. their legs are tangled, and sasuke – sasuke looks serious. it’s not unusual, except … it is. in  _this_  setting at least. sai nips at his bottom lip, sits up, slides so he’s straddling his thighs. something aches pleasantly at the motion, and he trails his hand once more across sasuke’s cheek, down his chest, to rest right under his ribcage. he can feel his heartbeat here. 

          “what’s got you looking so fucking grim?” it’s asked with a soft laugh, but sasuke doesn’t respond, and sai’s seeming good cheer evaporates. his expression cools into something neutral, though the single raised brow conveys his confusion well enough. “sasuke?”

          the other man’s expression, his body language tightens further, hand like a hot iron brand on sai’s thigh.  _i don’t want to see you anymore_ , he says, and sai feels his expression go blank with shock. at first he thinks he’s joking, even if it isn’t funny, but sasuke has the tick in his jaw he gets when he’s being particularly stubborn, and a flinty look in his eye. sai leans back, drawing his hand from his chest, and for a moment he stares at sasuke, completely still. 

          a slow blink, a breath. he feels like he got punched in the stomach, which is a little strange. blood seems like it’s rushing in his ears, there’s a tightness in his chest like he can’t quite breathe. he takes stock of all of this, and then he neatly boxes it away. 

          he doesn’t ask if sasuke is kidding. he knows the answer to that. “i see,” he responds, and even for him the tone is a little too blank. “well, you don’t have to be so serious about it.” with that, he slides out of his lap and out of his bed, not quite able to look his companion in the eye. picking up his clothes, he lacks his usual grace, movements turned slightly jerky and awkward, like he’s not quite sure what to do with himself, and – turns to him. opens his mouth, but he has nothing to say that isn’t … isn’t pathetic. 

          once he’s dressed, he slips out of his window to make his way home, analyzing the situation. what brought this on so suddenly? is it not sudden, and sai has been missing something for a while? was he not satisfying him? what did he do? he spends so long overthinking it in a shower that’s too-hot, until it’s too-cold, until he misses training completely. what did he do? 


	7. pop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: it's two in the morning and sai is-- drunk? high? he's not sure. he's holding onto the railing like a lifeline, like sasuke might reach over to pry his fingers off one by one and set him adrift again. he wants-- he wants to bring sai inside. wash him up, sober him up. keep him. be kept. but that ever-tightening noose around his neck says no, you can't, you don't fit right enough. so he lies. tries to make sai WANT to let go. "look, it's not... there's someone else. that's all. we were never..." - netsurai
> 
> or,
> 
> lies are told to ease the pain. it doesn't work.

          the ground won’t stop spinning, spinning, when all he wants it to do is fucking swallow him whole. he’s overdone it again, because that’s what he does, he consumes and consumes until there’s nothing left, like a black hole. he doesn’t remember telling his feet to take him here, to the stairs leading up to sasuke’s apartment, fists clenched white-knuckled around the metal of the railing, forehead pressed to the cold bar in an effort to sober up, or stay standing, or fucking ground himself and remember where he is. 

          he feels like a crazy person, but he just wants to know. he wants to know what he did, for sasuke to say something like  _i don’t want to see you anymore_. so fucking final, brutal and honest and  _ **efficient**_. his chest hasn’t stopped aching, his pride still stings, and he just wants to know. it’s been eating him alive. maybe that’s why his feet took him here. it’s definitely not something fucking pathetic like missing him, like wanting to see him, like it’s a habit to come here. it’s not that he’s got nowhere else to go. 

         sasuke’s silent coming up the stairs, and there’s no startling him, but he can’t really identify the expression that crosses his face. something like a grimace. and – and, sai is confused at the feeling he gets. he wants to lean against sasuke’s shoulder and throw his arms around him, bury his nose in his hair and hang off of him, listen to his displeased grunts until he gets shoved off, and then he wants to kiss him, but his hands won’t let go of the railing. it’s better that way. 

           sasuke leans on the railing next to him, and sai works up the courage to ask,  _what’d i do_? the question is hoarse, his fingers and his breath smell like sasuke’s cigarettes, and he can’t quite bring himself to lift his head. 

               _look, it’s not… there’s someone else. that’s all. we were never…_

          ah. he sees now. strangely, he feels his eyes water, as if he were about to cry. that’s … that’s silly, he knows. they’d started off clawing and snarling, wrapping their fingers around throats and biting out insults, trying to cut to the bone, but it had. it had changed. they had changed, he’d thought, but maybe – no. sasuke was a jackass, but he wasn’t cruel. this wasn’t a prank, he’d have to. just have to believe that. 

          so, what then. he’s not proud enough to think he’s perfect by any stretch of the word, but who … who else. sasuke had said he wanted to be exclusive, so  **who else.**

               _we were never …_

          and that’s the part that stings the most. sai had let the newness of everything blind him, inflate his self importance, and he’d fooled himself into thinking they were something they … just weren’t. so he’s stupid, and childish to boot. for thinking they were something they weren’t, for letting himself get lost in the. the feelings. stupid for thinking that being each other’s dirty little secret was sustainable, something that could last. 

          he bites down on the inside of his cheek until his eyes stop watering, until he can lift his head from the railing and straighten his shoulders and look at sasuke, full in the face. his mouth tastes like blood and bile and his chest hurts, feels like a knife slipping between his ribs and twisting, prying them apart, shredding muscle and grinding on bone. he holds his breath and keeps his expression neutral. 

          sai takes the feeling and he ruthlessly crushes it. so fiercely that his hands shake and clench on the railing, and he swallows the blood and the bile, and he gives sasuke the faintest smile. even  _he_  can tell it looks horrifically plastic.

           “that’s … great.” he wants to choke and die, or scream, and the drama of it all is just embarrassing. “take care of yourself, then.” the world is spinning again. he’s not sure if it’s because he’s inebriated or if it’s because he’s not breathing right. he can’t make his hands let go of the railing. 

          he doesn’t want to let go. but he has to. one finger at a time, take it easy now. one hand free, he reaches out as if to touch sasuke’s cheek, as if to brush his hair back, but he’s not allowed to do that anymore because – a shoulder pat then. except that’s a gesture for friends, and they weren’t friends before. so. his hand hovers between them, drops to hang uselessly at his side. the grotesque smile remains firmly in place, a mask over a mask over … nothing. 

            “okay.” there it is. the nothingness he’s been looking for. his voice settles and the furrow in his brow smooths. “okay,” he repeats it, now, blanker than it was before. that’s it then. this is it. he turns around and he walks away with a jerky wave, awkward, and robotic. 


	8. do you really though

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong.
> 
> or,
> 
> sai doesn't do metaphors unless he's the one being confusing.

         sai runs a hand feather-light along the line of sasuke’s jaw, down to the pulse in his throat, fingers hovering over the thrum and the soft skin. dark eyes are serious, but not cold. the things he has to say tonight have no cruelty in them, only the truth as he sees it.

          “blood of the dragon. body of a man.” his fingers are drawn away, back again like the tide to the moon, and now he is carding his fingers through sasuke’s hair, feeling, memorizing, because this man is so exquisite to exist in the moment with, to ponder on. “the heart, the head of a man.”

          his fingers hover over sasuke’s heart, but he doesn’t touch there. settles a hand on his thigh instead. sai can be afraid, sometimes. the black-ink scales on his own skin seem to shudder restlessly, shiftingspinningswirling in a seemingly endless pattern, an anxious pace. 

          “if a dragon bleeds, is it red like a man’s?” 


	9. a different end, a different life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends.
> 
> or,
> 
> if the war turned out differently, the hunters become the hunted

               the world is ending. 

          black smoke fills the skies, and the horizons are all on fire. the ash has long since started rotting people’s lungs, the black cloth masks –

          _naruto, grin visible in the curve of his eyes, blonde hair turned dark with soot, with sweat. “we look like kakashi-sensei,” he’d said, and they’d all had a chuckle about that._

          – no longer effective in protecting them from the fine particles. sai glances over at the few remaining teammates, friends that they still have, the way their chests struggle to rise and fall in the artificial darkness of the smoke blotting out the sun. thunder crackles, and kakashi shifts restlessly on the opposite side of their camp. sai looks back to his companion, skin grey and cold like damp clay in this light. sasuke’s expression is harder to read than ever, concealed in black cloth, but they are pressed shoulder to hip to thigh for warmth, and the tension leaks from him in fits and starts. there is a cut on his temple that just wont heal. sai has stared at it every night for the past two weeks, willing it to close, but so far this method has proved ineffective. he blinks slowly, eyes dry, lids dragging, and turns his head once more to the camp. there’s a lump near the entrance that has stopped moving since he turned his face away, and in the dim light he can’t tell who it is. who it  _was_. getting up would wake the others. 

          instead he pulls out a kunai, traces the sharp edges of the blade with the pad of his finger. twirls it once. stills. 

               “i don’t want to do this without you.” 

          the confession is quiet, a voice once rich and silken long since gone hoarse, pared down to a whisper from a pervasive cough he just can’t seem to shake. his voice does not shake, though, and after all they have faced he thinks that counts for something. 

               “i could,” he continues, turning his head once more to murmur into sasuke’s hair. it isn’t a lie – sai is a walking weapon, honed steel personified, and though he has chipped away in some places, his determination to survive this remains unwavering. will remain so until he struggles into his last breath, until he meets his end hard, fighting and on his feet, the impulse to  _protect_  always stronger than anything else. 

               “but i don’t want to. please don’t make me.” 


	10. oh for real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is really just explicit porn i wrote because rob was hurting my feelings

          they’ve been making out for what must have been hours, slow and sensual, naked and tangled up on the couch, not sure where one starts and the other ends. it’s … soft. the breeze blows in the open window, the midafternoon light eased by the pale curtains and spotted cloud cover, and sai can’t get enough of it. sasuke is gentle, pliant beneath him, and he’s sure he’s felt every inch of him at this point, their lips barely parting for breath. sai can’t bear to part their lips, can’t keep his hands still, they’ve been running through sasuke’s hair, along his jaw, down his throat. feathering across his collarbones. his left hand has been tangled with sasuke’s right for so long that his fingers are starting to go numb, pinning his arm above his head and using that point for balance. 

          and – honestly, his thighs are starting to shake from how badly his core aches, how much he wants the man under him  _inside_. sasuke isn’t much better off, his hips have been giving little starts and jerks, the hard line of his cock insistent against sai’s stomach. this is almost torturous, how slow they’re taking to get to it, but for once there’s no rush. 

          he pulls away from the kiss slowly, rather enjoying the glassy eyed look in his companion’s eyes and pretty sure he looks similar. he lifts his free hand to press a thumb against kiss swollen lips, a slow smile growing on his face. sasuke’s eyelashes flutter and he lets out a weak groan, his hips jerking once more, a little more insistently. the movement jostles him, his eyes just about roll back, but still he shushes him gently. 

          “easy, darling. you’ve been so good for me, so patient.” he leans down to nip at sasuke’s lower lip, pretending not to hear the desperate groan. “don’t you want your reward?”

          he untangles their fingers, takes his hand and settles it on his waist, shifting his weight around until he’s straddling his hips, now, grinding down and letting his head tip back. he’s so wet at this point that the slide comes easy, the familiar feel of him at his entrance is almost too much to resist. 

               but he has  _plans_ , damn it. 

          he shifts again, this time retreating to the far end of the couch, back against the armrest, legs spread like an invitation. sasuke makes to follow him, but sai plants the arch of his foot in his shoulder and pushes gently, shaking his head. “no,” he says, the command rolling off his tongue with ease. “that’s not the surprise. turn around and lean against the other arm rest, on your knees.” 

          sasuke would probably use a more dignified word than  _scrambling_ , but that’s exactly what he does. he scrambles over to the other side of the couch, bent over, and sai gives in for a moment and touches himself, fingers going in lazy circles on his clit. his thighs tremble, and he decides to have mercy, sliding up behind him and running both hands up his thighs and squeezing his ass. 

               he really makes the most exquisite noises. 

          sai gives him a hard slap and then a soothing caress, leans down to murmur a sweet affirmation against the skin of his back, tells him he’s such a good little slut, and then on trembling legs, he stands up. yeah, he didn’t plan this far ahead, which is his bad. he has to go to the bedroom to get his supplies. so he puts a hand on the back of sasuke’s neck, leans down, and gives him a kiss on the shoulder.  _stay_ , he murmurs, and disappears down the hall. 

          he returns with a harness, some lube, and three dildos of varying sizes. the silicone toys go on the side table directly in front of sasuke’s face, and sai takes the lube and harness to kneel behind him once more. he pops open the tube, drizzles it on his fingers, and slides them in. the pace is still slow, but there’s a rough, dirty edge to them now, the promise of something wild upcoming. sai leaves a trail of bites and insults up sasuke’s back, fingers stretching him, and settles with a nip at his ear and a quiet, “choose your reward for being good.” 

          it takes him a moment to process the question, but dark eyes snap to the toys in front of him, and of course he chooses the largest one with a panted  _far left_. sai manages not to roll his eyes and instead gives him a wet kiss on the cheek, a purred  _good choice_ , and leans against his back to reach up and grab it, pressing the length of their bodies together, his fingers curling inside sasuke as he does so. he full on  **whines** , which is deeply gratifying, and sai draws away once more to put the harness on and together. sasuke rests his forehead against his wrist in front of him, arching his back, and sai gives his ass one more grab-smack-caress combo before he slips inside. 

          the sound sasuke makes is absolutely filthy, and the pace is set. both hands clutch at his hips, dragging him closer to meet thrusts that sound like they punch the air from his lungs. sai fucks him like that until his arm starts to give out, at which point he drags them both back, until he’s resting on a folded leg for leverage and sasuke is in his lap, back to his chest, with one arm wrapped firmly around his throat. the fact that it only takes a few strokes like this until he’s arching, coming untouched, is almost dizzying, and sai tightens the arm around his neck briefly and then releases him, holding him in place against his chest while he catches his breath. 

          a moment of quiet stretches between them, and sai places a gentle kiss at the junction where shoulder meets neck, and trails his fingers along the inside of his thigh. one more slow, torturous hip roll has sasuke moaning loud enough to wake the dead, and with a laugh, sai lowers him to the couch, rubbing his back with a few brief strokes. 

          he can give him a minute to catch his breath.


	11. advice you should take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: i don’t know how to love him.
> 
> or, 
> 
> seriously, who ISN'T a little bit in love with uzumaki naruto?

          there’s something ugly twisting inside sai’s gut, something he won’t put a name to. he isn’t sure which party he’s jealous of, honestly– naruto, to have sasuke moping and mooning over him like this, or sasuke, for having a shot in hell. ultimately he decides it doesn’t matter, and steals sasuke’s cigarette from his fingers to take a long drag. the disgusting taste of ash is better than the bitterness lingering in the back of his throat like bile. 

          “it’s not that hard, sasuke.” his tone is flat, and if one were looking for it they might hear the minor annoyance. “you just have to let yourself.”

          things aren’t quite that simple, but they could be. sasuke  _knows_  him, knows what he likes, what he wants, what he needs. he has the emotional capability to make naruto happy, all he has to do is let himself be happy at the same time. 

          “but we both know you aren’t going to. so why do you torture yourself like this? lead him around by the heart and then drop him when you get too scared?”


	12. fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: close your eyes and relax, think of nothing tonight.
> 
> or, 
> 
> tenderness doesn't have to be rare, doesn't have to be painful

          leaden limbs take monumental effort to move, a fever sapping the strength from his muscles. he feels an ache from the follicles of hair on top of his head to the very tips of his toes, sore from hours spend heaving the nothing in his stomach on the bathroom floor, it hurts to breathe. it hurts to think. 

          through the haze of sickness, a single cool hand drops to the back of his neck, thumbing through the sweaty strands there with a soothing murmur. sai manages to crack open a single eye, gets a glimpse of sasuke, concerned and backlit in the yellow light of the bathroom. he helps him to his feet, out of his clothes, and into a bath. it feels cold, but it can’t be much less than skin temperature. his fever must be worryingly high then. 

          sasuke washes his hair, and once he’s done, he soaks for a bit, dozing off against sasuke’s thigh on the edge of the tub. murmurs something about not even remembering the last time he was this damn sick. 

          _close your eyes and relax, think of nothing tonight,_ is his response. sai resolves to do his best to follow his suggestion as he’s pulled from the tub and dried off, limbs wrestled into a sweatshirt and soft joggers. any commentary on his sad lack of pajamas is ignored on the grounds that sai doesn’t buy clothes for himself, and is unsure of whether sasuke is actually keeping up a one sided conversation, or if sai is hallucinating. 

          a glass of lukewarm water is pressed into his hands, and he’s ordered to drink the whole thing, slowly. his hands shake so badly he almost can’t hold it, and sasuke hovers nearby until it’s gone. he’s wrapped in a blanket and deposited on the bed but it feels … empty. a minimal amount of dazed thrashing has sasuke returning to his side and curling up behind him, an arm pinning him down. sai thrashes harder, hissing, and hits the floor for his efforts. he manages to untangle himself, can’t quite find his words, but it’s fine– when sasuke helps him back into the bed, he doesn’t wrap him up or weigh him down, instead just curling up at his side and leaving a hand resting on his stomach, under his shirt. it’s … comforting, especially when he starts to rub. 

          he ends up falling asleep like that, and his dreams that night are strange, filled with otherwordly strangers with too many teeth, fingers rummaging around in his insides, and far too many eyes. he gets little rest that night, and neither does his companion.


	13. whispered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: I’m scared that I’m not human.
> 
> or,
> 
> what's so great about being human anyway?

          sakura bought him a salt lamp last week. the light it casts is a soft pink-gold, good for setting the mood, and he’s finding when he turns it on while sasuke is around, it creates a certain atmosphere. as if time, as if the outside world isn’t real, minutes stretch out into hours until the sun comes up and they’ve just been kissing, whispering to each other, dozing for what seems like forever, for what seems like no time at all. sometimes the things that get confessed in this light are terrifying, sometimes they’re painful, and sometimes they feel like a burden … not released, but shared. shouldered by a friend for a while, until they part ways again. 

          sasuke says  _i’m scared that i’m not human_ , and sai sits up to lean on his elbow, to look down at him, head to toe and back. a long moment of silence stretches between them as sai considers his response, what he has to say on this subject, if anything. the words don’t come to him right away, for once, his mouth isn’t running away from him. 

          “you’re frighteningly human.” his first two fingers lazily trace patterns into sasuke’s collarbone, and his brow furrows as he struggles to put his thoughts into words. “you … feel, so much. guilt, rage. you want things, for yourself, for others. you make mistakes. these things are as much part of the human experience as the shit that you deny yourself, sasuke – the love and the joy.” his fingers settle over the pulse in his throat, tracing the carotid artery. 

        _i see you,_  he wants to say. those particular words will not come. “you look in the mirror and you want so badly to see a monster, a dragon, something ugly and terrible to match what you feel inside. i don’t understand it.” a head shake, and now his hair is in his eyes. “after all that you have seen, all that you have done and had done to you, do you not understand.”

            _humans can be monsters too._

          he’s tired, incapable of saying what he needs to say, what he needs sasuke to understand. the man thinks in black and white, and all sai ever sees is the shades of grey. the man, the monster, the one who is both. he tries again. 

          “i’ve seen you pull a kitten out of a gutter, half drowned and freezing, and nurse it back to health. there are worse things out there than _you_.”


	14. grievous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: i got you. it’s gonna be okay, you’re going to be okay.
> 
> or,
> 
> one step forward, two steps back

       lightning strikes, and he falls. lands flat on his back twenty-odd feet below.

          his nerves are on fire. he cannot breathe, he cannot stop shaking. he can hear, can  _feel_  his heart skip beats, slamming against his ribs. it feels like an eternity before he can even draw his first breath, so long after spots started to dance in his vision that he’s sure, absolutely  **positive**  that he is dead. sasuke crouches next to him through it all, a hand rubbing firmly along his spine to encourage him to inhale, turning him over onto his side to keep him from choking on the blood from where he bit his tongue. it spills out of his mouth and onto the ground, crimson-bright in the snow, on his skin, sticking in his hair. he coughs once, twice, and sasuke moves on to rubbing his side, his arm, trying to encourage his blood to flow normally again and to keep him from panicking. 

          these are all things sai recognizes, distantly. the majority of his forebrain is occupied with thoughts of  _oh i must be dying_ , and  _this shit sucks_ , and  _what the hell_. minutes, hoursdaysweeks later he rolls to lay on his back once more, tremulous fingers gripping sasuke’s wrist weakly. he uses this to try and sit up, but his body won’t listen to him, won’t obey, and he knows it’s because his nerves are shot, that he needs to give himself a while to recover, probably needs a medic to look him over and make sure he isn’t going to work his way into a heart attack, or a permanent irregular heartbeat, but he hates this. 

          it’s just them, now. their (foolish) attacker is growing cold in the dirt fifteen feet away, and sai still can’t allow himself more than the bare minimum of a moment’s weakness. he fights with himself some more, manages to sit up despite the noise of protest from his companion, blood running down his chin, his neck, staining the collar of his cloak with every heaving breath. his body is leaden, every thought clouded, like he’s swimming through glue to reach each one. the only thing he knows is that he has to  _get to his feet. has to get up. to keep going. danzo-sama says pain is just a message, something to be ignored, something to breathe through, something to –_

          he’s trying to get up, but sasuke’s holding him down with just one hand at his shoulder, and the most he can do is struggle weakly, like a damn newborn kitten, and let himself get dragged half into sasuke’s lap until the worst of the shakes subside. he ends up on his stomach, his cheek pressed into sasuke’s hip, a hand sliding up and down from the nape of his neck to the space between his shoulders. his eyes are watering. 

               this is pathetic. 

           sasuke is talking to him like he’s a frightened child, hand gentle and warm where he’s  _petting_  him, and. and. he doesn’t tell him to stop. he  _should_. but he won’t. 


	15. mistakes are made, over and over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: I like him in those positions… of leadership.
> 
> or,
> 
> we get it, you're GAY gay

          sai manages to tear his eyes away from where he’s been uh, staring at naruto’s ass, as he’d bent over a table pointing out defensible positions on a map, turning his gaze down to sasuke’s sharp cheekbone instead. they are shoulder to shoulder, standing along the wall, and apparently, they have both been ogling naruto for the past however long. sai is unsure how to feel about this, though he thinks the safest thing to settle on is a vague amusement. 

          “try to keep it in your pants,” his response is as dry as a bone bleached by the sun, and just as brittle. he doesn’t say  _i know exactly how you like it_ , or  _everyone knows_ , and he certainly doesn’t ask  _why do you need to say this to me_. all of those are too much of an admission, in their own way. 

          eyes stray back to naruto, the bare hint of a smile they can catch over the proud line of his shoulder when he turns to sakura next to him, the glitter of golden blonde in the flickering light above them. he looks back to sasuke, the way the shadows seem to eat at the pair of them, and he just … can’t. quiet, softly, he claps a hand to sasuke’s chest, lets it slide away as he slips from the room for some fresh air. he needs. he needs something. he’s not sure what it is, but a minute will do. 


	16. murder can be hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: I wasn’t thinking about killing you.
> 
> or, 
> 
> stating the obvious can be an admission on its own

          “i didn’t think you were.” sai cups his hands to sasuke’s jaw, tilts his face up with something edging a little too close to softness. the corner of his mouth twitches at his serious expression, a smile fought back. this moment is tender, as many of them are, but what they have … doesn’t quite allow them to acknowledge it. he has to tread carefully. 

          well, he  _should_. recklessness catches like wildfire around here, it seems, because he smooths the wrinkle between sasuke’s brows down with a thumb, and that’s probably worse than a smile, isn’t it. he drops his hands, takes a step back, leaning against the railing of the bridge with something akin to laziness. the curious tilt of his head belies the posturing. 

          he’d made a study of sasuke’s expressions, as of late. what kiba had earlier mistaken for murderous intent had, in fact, been sasuke’s ‘kiss me’ face. it’s an easy mistake to make, they’re nearly the same – the furrowed brows, the heavy frown, tense shoulders and tight eyes. the missing link had been the teeth – he’d not gritted then, or bared them, so he’d found sai’s needling hot instead of infuriating. 

               which, if he had to admit, was the goal. 

          apparently sasuke had taken kiba’s comment to heart. as if sai would mind if sasuke was toying with the thought of obliterating him. really, it’s like the other man didn’t know him at  _all_. 

          a smile, full of teeth, and this time the root isn’t fond or kind, it’s teasing, smug. perhaps even a little mean. “you wanted to kiss me. you can, you know.” he’s not sure if he means  _now_ , or if he means he can do it in public next time, in front of the gods and all of their friends, their team, their family. could have kissed him then, when he was halfway through a barbed joke, aggravated, something to silence him, a fight. a bloodsport. his fingers twitch, he wants to reach out again and drag him close, to dig in and not let go, to rip and tear. it’s easier to feel  **that**  than the tender bits of him, and what they crave. he doesn’t particularly want to feel either, so he crosses his arms instead, and blinks slowly. the ball, as it were, is in sasuke’s court. 


	17. wrong flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: i woke up, & you were gone.
> 
> or,
> 
> not everyone is like you

          sai’s head tilt is … cute, if one thinks raptors are adorable. his hair is damp, fluffed up every which way from a clear attempt at towel drying. sasuke gets a sleepy blink, and then dark eyes slide to the alarm clock. 1:12am. sai does not understand what the issue is. 

          “you’d been asleep for a while, but i couldn’t relax, so i went for a run.” sai flicks the lamp light on, the yellow light illuminating the room better than the dim white of the moon. “and then i stank, so i took a shower.” 

          he sits at the edge of the bed, blinking owlishly at the man curled up under three of his blankets. there is a smile on his face, and it’s … real enough, albeit a little confused. “this is  _my_ apartment, sasuke. where was i going to go?”

          ringing silence is his only answer.


	18. never

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: let them hate me, hit me, hurt me.
> 
> or,
> 
> that roaring anger, the protectiveness curling within you, it means you're doomed

               “ _ **no**_.” 

          it’s the only reaction he can muster for a moment, the thought of sasuke allowing himself to suffer because he thinks he deserves it leaving something sticky in his throat, constricting his breathing, something ugly, something terrifying crawling around over his heart, in his hands, clawing through his brain. his fingers tighten on sasuke’s wrist. 

          he can’t articulate it – how the thinks sasuke is too hard on himself, that he thinks the man deserves to let himself be happy, to grow into peace, whatever the fuck that means for him. so he just clenches his fist, trying to keep his hand from shaking with anger, with sadness, with something like fear, and he grits his teeth, and he repeats himself.

          “ _no_.” he says, with only slightly less force this time, and it’s all he can say. sasuke will do what he has to do, and sai will do the same. 


	19. a marriage proposal, in three parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompts: i guess, if we really had to, we could... get married. you know, just to make them shut up, and all. / “you know, it’d be better if we were married.” the taxes, that is. of course. just the taxes. which Sai is currently filing. that’s all. “or so I’ve heard.” / will you make miso soup for me everyday?
> 
> or, 
> 
> eventually you're going to have to do it yourself

          sai is unsure if he understands the context of this statement. it seems kind of random, is all, considering … there isn’t much in the way of people talking about them to shut up. actually, he was under the impression that he was something like sasuke’s dirty little secret. 

          he raises a single skeptical brow, giving sasuke a once over as if to divine the source of this strange behavior. “… is that a joke?”

* * *

 

          sai’s laugh comes easy despite the agitated stutter his heart takes. he has to put down his pen and push away from the desk in his stupid rolling chair, spinning around as he sails towards sasuke. his aim is, as always, perfect. he comes to a stop, nearly toppling into the man’s lap, teasing lilt to his voice, lighting up his eyes, turning his smirk a little lopsided. 

          “ _you_  pay  _taxes_?” he reaches out and tugs on his collar lightly, trying to pull him into a kiss. “aren’t you an international war criminal?” 

          hell, not that he’s one to judge. he didn’t exist in the eyes of the state until something like six years ago, still doesn’t have a clan or a surname to put first. his primary identification is still his ninja ID, his next of kin still uzumaki naruto.

                _uchiha sai_. 

          it doesn’t sound too bad, he thinks. if only sasuke would stop fucking around and just  **ask**. 

* * *

 

          he pauses for a moment, before abandoning the task of scrubbing burned noodles from the bottom of a pan – his latest attempt at cooking. they stare at each other, sasuke reddening more and more by the second, while sai just grows more confused. slowly, like he’s not sure if the pair of them just watched the same disastrous meal prep, he says, “sasuke, i am a  _terrible_  cook.” 

          sasuke gets that stubborn tick to his jaw, lower lip jutting out in a way that would be  _adorable_  if it didn’t usually mean he was about to do or say something insurmountably stupid, and sai  _ **…**_ sai gets it. warmth and exasperation bloom in his chest, and he has to fight to keep the smile off his face. fails when he reaches out and takes sasuke’s wrist, pulls him close and deposits his hand at the small of his back, leaning down to leave a smoldering kiss on his lips. he keeps him there, opens his eyes and stares at him close, so close.

          “i’m already here every day, if you let me. forever.” amusement creeps into his tone once more, and he can’t read the expression on sasuke’s face but he hopes it’s good. “but if you want me to marry you or something, you have to actually  _ask_. you know i’m not very good at picking up hints.”


	20. favors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: could you ask as much from any other man?
> 
> or, 
> 
> would you do as much for any other man

          his heart is in his throat, pounding away, stealing the breath from his lungs and leaving his pulse hammering in his ears, behind his eyes, in his mouth. his fingers, wrung tight as they are folded behind his back, feel clumsy where they’re hidden, and he doesn’t move them because he’s afraid the adrenaline will make them shake. 

          “i wouldn’t ask half as much from another man,” he says, and it feels like he’s putting nails in his own coffin. “but you aren’t any other, are you? you’re uchiha sasuke.” 

          he wants nothing more than to reach out and tuck his hands in sasuke’s pockets, to press against him and kiss him, to rest their foreheads together and close his eyes and just. exist. for a second. but they. don’t do that. anymore.

               “so, will you do it?”

          he does.


	21. where do you hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: a moment of weakness
> 
> or
> 
> some pains are more easily ignored than others, some hurts more easily healed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for vague torture and dissociation in the face of that

               sai has a place to go. 

          he’s had it for a long time– free falling, no end in sight, deafening wind rushing past his ears as he watches the distance between him and the clouds fold and bend in mysterious ways. it’s his headscape, it doesn’t have to make sense. he cannot see the ground rushing to meet him and he is never afraid. the sensations of his mind are powerful enough to drown the sensations of his real life, and the numbness and lassitude creeping into his limbs leave him doll-like. 

          this reaction infuriates his captors. they want him to scream, to beg, they want him to spill secrets like a well, so they beat him, they threaten him, break his bones. they hurt him. he is no stranger to these things, was created by them, and when he’s in his place he cannot feel it anyway. they can pick at him until there is nothing left and he will not speak, will do no more than cast his empty stare into the middle distance and watch the sky until he blacks out, and if he wakes up he will do it again. 

               as he falls, he thinks:  _it would be nice to survive._

          there is nothing particularly revolutionary about this thought outside of the fact that he has it. it’s difficult to probe into it deeper, every time he tries the clouds drift closer and take odd shapes, and he has to focus on them for some reason. time and distance continue to warp, and he doesn’t know how long he spends falling. 

               sai hits the ground. 

          jerking into awareness with a shuddering gasp, he finds himself tied to a chair, staring into the face of a man, a man with a hand on his cheek. who is he, who is– sasuke. that’s sasuke. take stock of your body, feel the creak and grind of the broken bones and the sting of cuts and the way his eyes won’t quite focus. he sucks in another breath and the pain hits him in one fell swoop, and he doesn’t cry out because that was trained out of him when he was a child, but he has to let his head fall back to look at the ceiling. his eyes water, an involuntary reaction to the sweat and blood that’s been running into them for however long. his fingers are numb from where they’re tied behind him, and he already knows the silver wire has left deep gouges in the skin, the muscle, the bone of his spider-hands. sasuke makes a noise, perhaps addresses him, but sai is still half-deaf from falling, and dizzy from the wall of pain and the blood loss that just hit him. he doesn’t even want to look at the mess they’d made of him. 

          a hand, fever-hot, brushes down his shoulder, cuts him free. sai can tell the other man is having trouble with deciding which injuries to address first, and. yeah, he can sympathize. but he has to start somewhere, or he’ll never get up, may as well go back to falling. but he’d said it himself.  _it would be nice to survive._

          finally, a groan slips from his lips as he sits up, arms slipping around to rest in his lap. yeah, they’re torn to shit. there’s bone showing in more than one place, which explains why he’s a little foggy. usually he can snap right back into fighting shape, fights better when he’s fresh out of falling, but. that’s okay. it looks like the fighting is done. he blinks down at his hands in his lap, draws in a ragged, painful breath. “ow,” he says, softly but with great feeling. it’s succinct, and about as dignified as he can get. sasuke does not laugh. 

          he tests out his toes, his ankles, his knees. they all seem to be in working order, the worst he got was a few solid kicks. “i think i can walk,” so goddamn hoarse, he wasn’t  _screaming_ , why is his mouth so dry? that train of thought slips away like the rest, and he stumbles badly enough upon standing that sasuke darts forward and tucks up against his side. leaning on him makes his ribs shift, and he slumps a little with a soft sigh. this sucks a lot. 

          “how are we getting out of here?” his brain feels like it’s glitching, somehow. he can’t stop hyperfocusing on little things, jumping from the ways his body hurts, the smear of blood on sasuke’s cheek, the spot of rust on the ceiling, the severed hand laying on the ground in a pool of gore. he figures they can probably make it out of here before sai passes out. he’ll try his best. after all. 

          it would be nice to live.


	22. worse yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: don't you know that you can do better? haven't people told you that yet?
> 
> or, 
> 
> haha, no

          carefully taking sasuke’s wrist, turning it over to brush a thumb against the blue-bright veins pulsing under the thin, delicate skin, sai ponders. no, no one has told him he could do better. actually, he’s heard a few scoffed ‘those two deserve each other’s, from people who likely didn’t think he was listening, though he’s not quite sure what that’s supposed to mean. he blinks slowly, takes a breath. what does  _sasuke_  mean? doesn’t he know their venn diagram of friends is essentially a circle? who would try to warn him off?  _ **naruto**_? it’d be pretty fucking rich, coming from him. 

          he settles sasuke’s hand on his waist, pulling him just a little bit closer. and what about sasuke? perhaps he deserves better? after all, sai is just a mask wearing a mask, a mess of a man that’s hollow at the core, a blade that’s honed and dulled in all the wrong fucking places. he can’t say the right thing for the life of him, isn’t equipped to help him, hell. half the time he couldn’t tell if sasuke wanted to butcher him in the beginning. 

          they don’t fit, their jagged edges scrape and tear at each other, some days it feels like they don’t even speak the same language. they’re learning to exist in the spaces next to one another, like grass and a summer breeze. he can’t see them ten years from now, with a house on a hill and three and a half kids, settled down, aging together. frankly, he’d be shocked if either of them lived that long. 

          but it isn’t so bad, is it? the way they are now. the moments of tenderness: sasuke’s breath on his collarbone, the way their fingers feel tangled together, a hand on a jaw, thumb tracing an arched brow, whispered fears between them in the dark. he thinks about feeling breathless when sasuke walks into a room, the way something warm and satisfied curls in his chest when they make eye contact, how fucking gutted, how cut to the core he felt when sasuke said, ‘i don’t want to see you anymore’, when he lied, ‘there’s someone else, we were never–’. the shivering kitten in unnaturally warm hands, the tiny, awkward smile specifically for children, the gentleness in his voice reserved for his closest friends. 

               sai thinks, fiercely, that he would probably kill a man for saying he deserved better than sasuke. perhaps this is why he’s never heard it.

          his free hand comes up to cup sasuke’s jaw, a move so familiar by now that he wouldn’t even have to look. he doesn’t say  _who would care enough to think that way_ , doesn’t say  _it doesn’t matter what other people think of us_ , and he doesn’t ask  _isn’t it the other way around_? instead he places a kiss on the corner of his lip, trails it up his cheek, to his temple, the shell of his ear.  _let me kiss you_ , he thinks, and he pulls away. 

          “you’re as good as you are, and that’s better than most. exactly as good as i need you to be.” sai’s voice is as smooth as silk, but there’s a steel core to it. he isn’t arguing, he’s telling. it turns into a jackal-smile. “why, have people said it to you?”


	23. kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sasuke kisses him RIGHT there in PUBLIC. they do this now. just a casual lil smooch before he turns to go get his orders from Kakashi.
> 
> or, 
> 
> you get what you ask for, apparently

          sai wonders if he’s  _imagining_  the heavy silence, the chirp of crickets that descends upon them when sasuke drags him down by the collar to give him a lingering kiss on the lips in the middle of the war room. it’s very possible that no one gives a shit, and this is just the soundtrack his mind plays when it goes completely blank. he can’t quite bring himself to look around, exactly, since he’s doing his favorite thing: kissing uchiha sasuke directly on the mouth, slipping him just a little bit of tongue, and – 

          sasuke pulls away and turns to kakashi, leaving sai a flushed wreck of a man behind him, his face aflame, and he can’t stop  _smiling_. has to put a hand over his mouth, but it doesn’t cover the bright red of his ears, the slight sway he does, involuntarily leaning towards him as he backs off. sai wants to kiss him again. he always wants to kiss him again.


	24. certainty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin.
> 
> or, 
> 
> sometimes, life can be funny that way

        “the ego on you,” he says, dry as a desert. sai is long past being incredulous, though. between sasuke’s self-image issues and the way people speak of him in hushed whispers, it’s no shock he thinks this way. he turns to him, circles an arm around his waist and pulls him into his lap. the water in the bath splashes over the sides a little, but he pays it no mind, just reaching up with his free hand to tangle his fingers in the hairs at the nape of his neck, tilting his face up like he’s about to kiss him. 

          “madness and greatness are matters of perspective,” he trails his lips from the corner of sasuke’s eye, to his cheekbone, down to his jaw. leaves a bite there, tugs his hair a little to tilt his head back, settles his lips over his pulse point. he doesn’t need to mention the madmen proclaiming greatness that had ruined their lives, but he’s thinking about them. “and none of that matters in the end, because every one of us ends up forgotten by time eventually.” 

          the hand at his waist slides down to settle on his thigh instead, stroking the skin there lazily, even as sai pulls away and stares at the man in his lap blankly. “what makes you so special, to be considered any more mad than the rest?” sai leans forward to kiss him again, and again. “though, i suppose your greatness is undeniable.” 


	25. the lies and the half-truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: would you have come with me?
> 
> or, 
> 
> you're really sick of having this conversation in a hundred different ways

         it’s funny, he thinks. when they first met, sai never would have pegged him as anything close to a dreamer. he isn’t quite an idealist, and he wouldn’t even  _consider_  of calling it naivety, but. sasuke convinces himself of things, the way he thinks they should be, and then he finds it hard to shake the image from his mind. something parallel. sai finds this trait endearing sometimes, occasionally even romantic. other times, the little lies sasuke convinces himself to live with, are hard to swallow. hard to live with. 

              it is what it is. 

          he cups his hand on sasuke’s jaw, tips of his fingers brushing the delicate skin under his eye, and doesn’t lean in to kiss him. “how would i know,” he says. “you didn’t ask.” it’s not an accusation, it’s a cold fact. 

          he’s lying, anyways. they  _both_  know sai would not have followed him. not everyone can go off on self-flagellating isolationist adventures, sasuke. sometimes people have things like duty, and responsibility, and friends and family that they don’t, can’t run away from. 

          sai isn’t angry. he’s just. tired. he drops his hand from sasuke’s face with a sigh, and steps away. “and you won’t ask me when you leave again,”  _when_ , not  _if_. “so what is it exactly that you’re looking for, from me. i don’t think i’ve ever known.”


	26. nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: we’re dying.
> 
> or, 
> 
> only sometimes

          it was the rain. chakra suppressing, he guesses, though he’s not quite ready to rule out certain kinds of poisons. the skies had been clear, until they weren’t, and sai had laughed at the sour expression on his companion’s face, likening him to the wet kittens he was so fond of bringing home. 

               it’s not so funny later. 

          slugging through mud, finding out they’re unable to access their chakra. not world-ending for sai, someone with finite reserves, but. he imagines it’s a blow to sasuke, normally such a chakra juggernaut. they stop complaining, bickering, their conversations reduced to short, clipped sentences, on what to do next. 

          there are battles, strange figures lashing out from the shifting darkness, nearly impossible to fight back against. with each one, they accumulate injuries. sai imagines this is some sort of trial, because thinking that way makes it easier to swallow than believing it to be some kind of sick game. he doesn’t know how sasuke feels about it, they’re too tired to speak now. they continue on their journey because it’s habit to keep walking, he thinks. something within him knows. if they stop to rest, they will never rise again. 

          so they keep going, long past the point where their extremities go numb, the cold rain soaking them to the bone, turning to sleet that eventually stops melting against their skin. sai can’t feel his feet, can’t feel his hands, can’t feel his face. he’s sluggishly bleeding from quite a few places, and he knows sasuke is in the same boat. but. they have to keep going. 

          it’s something more than a grim determination that tells him this. an itch under his skin, a worm in the brain, it has him taking sasuke’s wrist and walking with him, numb fingers circled as tightly as they can be around flesh, two slender bones. they both stumble. they both fall. they both pull each other back to their feet and keep going.

         they’re being picked apart, like crows do to a carcass, exposing the things inside. the rot. the gore. 

                _we’re dying_ , sasuke says. the acknowledgement is a death sentence. 

          sai doesn’t say anything. he keeps walking. it’s all he knows to do. sasuke repeats himself, a little louder, like he thinks maybe the problem was that sai didn’t hear him. his fingers tighten on his wrist, and he remains silent again. 

          sasuke stops. pulls his wrist away, and the motion pulls sai off balance. they stand there, uncertain, staring at each other in the creeping darkness, the oppressive shadows, and sai. he can’t make himself reach out again. can’t lift his hand. he looks down at them, palms up, fingers spread, and finds himself going transparent. one last course of adrenaline thrums through him, and he lunges, latching onto sasuke’s shoulders. 

               sasuke looks through him. 

          he cups his face, wills him to see, and  –  _no, no, not like this, not like this, **please**_  – his hands slip through, and sasuke begins fading from sight too. they’re intangible. sasuke shows no sign of hearing him. 

               sai screams. 

          he wakes up shuddering and gasping, reaching for a cold space on the bed, and–

          his hand closes on nothing but soft sheets, glowing silver in the moonlight. he watches his hand settle there and tremble like a leaf, trying to get his bearings. the ragged breathing is loud in the quiet of the night. all he can do is lay there despite the crushing panic in is blood, in his bones. his teeth grind. he can’t get up. he just lays there. 


	27. bribery, cunning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "i'll eat you out if you drop the subject." a man can dream. and bargain.
> 
> or, 
> 
> only one of us will hold our end of the bargain, and you know it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vaguely nsfw

          sai is flat on his back, one arm folded behind his head, the other tangled carefully in sasuke’s hair – they’ve been necking for what seems like hours, have managed to get rid of their shirts, and sasuke has moved on to leaving kisses and bites on his collarbones, across his chest, down to his nipples, started rolling his hips and grinding up just so. their pants are on, and sai is so wet, so close to cumming just like this that his thighs are trembling, so in a mad quest to ruin the mood Just A Little Bit so he can cool down, he’d said,  _we should go on a double date with haku and naruto_.

          sasuke had sat up, leaving the skin he’d been laying against suddenly cold, raising goosebumps on his arms and his chest. they stare at each other for a moment, catching their breath, calculating. he can see sasuke getting that stubborn slant to his shoulders, the hard look back in his eye, and he thinks about pushing, but … a more tempting offer is on the table.

               he can shelf this discussion. for now. 

          a sly smirk settles on his lips, and he leans up on his elbows. “deal. you drive a hard bargain.” the swiftness with which he agrees kind of belies the words themselves, but it is what it is. he can hardly expect to keep his perfect composure when he’s about to get fucked to death. 

          he settles his ankle on sasuke’s shoulder, folds his leg slowly. sasuke bends forward with the motion, leaving a kiss on his breastbone, trailing down his stomach as his thighs part once more. his pants come off, and sasuke’s thumb trails over the damp underwear, slips underneath and presses inside easily, both of them drawing a shaky breath at the sensation. sai lets his head fall back and his hand tangle once more in sasuke’s hair.

          “if you do well, i’ll give you a reward.” his voice is slightly breathless as sasuke hooks his teeth into the elastic band and draws his underwear down his thighs. he’s once more lost in the haze of lust, but he won’t try to fight it off this time – maybe if he can come up with a reward enticing enough, he can get sasuke to play nice.


	28. hard truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: this isn't a community to me, sai. these are just the people who murdered my family.
> 
> or, 
> 
> being a kicked dog is valid, you're just hurting my feelings

          his hands still, blade of the tanto pressed carefully to the whetstone. motionless for a moment, dipping his chin and peering at sasuke sideways -- it’s hard to know what he sees in that moment, when he looks at sasuke, and even harder still to put into words. he doesn’t know what to say, so he goes back to sharpening his blade. 

               one, two, three long rasps of steel on stone. 

          “those that actually plotted the death of your family are dead and rotting,” he says finally, setting his blade to the side and looking sasuke full in the face. there is no expression to be found, just a pale moon with two black pits, the tiniest wrinkle between his brows. “the people that hate you now don’t hate your family name, they hate  _you_  specifically, and you are the last.” 

          he turns away once more to wipe the blade, to clean the whetstone, to pack both away carefully. he needs something to do, because if he looks at sasuke, he won’t have anything to say other than, ‘don’t leave’. 

          “but you don’t have to explain yourself to me.” after all, who is sai to ask him to stay, his jailor? no, just a snake in the grass, hissing and biting out of fear. out of pain. of being left behind, of being forgotten, of surviving only so that he may finish his obligations in life until he is no longer needed, and then being left in the dirt to rust and decay. if sai is not enough to make him stay, and the life they were trying to built is not enough to make him stay, who is he to ask him, to beg, to demand he rot here where he is miserable. 

          sasuke will go, and he will chase death like a miserable dog, and sai will stay here and survive, because that’s what he’s good at. he folds his hands in his lap and he bites back the venomous words, the uncharitable thoughts on sasuke’s actions, and he is calm. “and you don’t have to ask me for permission, either. you’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you? so go.” 


	29. look with your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: you seem happy with haku
> 
> or, 
> 
> you're a fucking idiot, uchiha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> read more on haku and sai here: [link tba]

          sai’s temper flares hot, his teeth glinting white like little knives, lips peeled back into a silent snarl. he dips his chin but keeps his back facing sasuke, wraps the dish towel around his fingers until they turn red, then white, then purple. he breathes. relaxes his grip. 

          “yes,” he replies, his voice even. cheerful. something far north of warm. “haku is a good person.” 

          he drags the towel off his hands and drops it on the counter, finally turns to face him. his face is blank, frigid. his eyes dark, lips a bloodless slash in his face. he’s tired. he’s tired of fighting when sasuke doesn’t even fucking bother to fight with him. he crosses his arm and blinks slowly.

          “he has his own kids.” sai isn’t sure what he’s trying to say. lying to sasuke by omission to hurt him, telling him about haku. he doesn’t want to say  _why do you even care enough to ask_ , and he doesn’t want to say  _you’re a coward_. he doesn’t know what to do. he’s tired. 

          arms cross. his jaw flexes. he doesn’t know what to say. he doesn’t know what to say. “you …” he shakes his head and sighs. “open your eyes.” 


	30. the brewing storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: come back to bed.
> 
> or, 
> 
> the night calls, as does your heart

          the bedroom is dark. there is no moon out tonight, only the howling wind audible through the panes of glass he’s pressed against, sitting in the windowsill with no shirt, gooseflesh rigid on his arms and down his back. his body language is loose, but the bold ink of his tattoo seems to curl and shift restlessly, and his eyes are focused on something distant outside in the night. his breath fogs the window, slow and easy. 

          he doesn’t startle when sasuke leans against him, pressed shoulder to back, though he didn’t hear him wake or get out of bed. the heat of him feels like a blazing fire, enveloping, consuming, and he can’t help but lean closer, more skin, more warmth, more touch. the condensation of his breath is starting to frost against the window.  _come back to bed,_  sasuke says, sleep clouding the words into a mumble.

          sai eyes the frost on the glass, watches the wild thrash of the bare trees outside, tries to imagine the cut of the wind on his skin but it’s so, so hard when he’s cuddled up to a bonfire.  _it’s going to storm tonight_ , he responds, voice barely audible. sasuke hears him, settles his chin on his shoulder with a thoughtful hum, brushes their cheeks close and watches the scene outside with him for a moment, or perhaps looks at their reflection. he can’t tell, doesn’t care to ask, too focused on the gathering clouds blocking out the stars. the night goes from dark, to darker. 

          _then we’ll stay in, tomorrow_ , sasuke finally responds, voice careful. sai reaches out and swipes a finger through the cloud of frosted breath, shaping a lazy swirl with his finger. he tells him it’s a good idea, and lets sasuke pull him back into the already-cool sheets, curling tightly around one another. 


	31. flint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: i already know i’ll lose you.
> 
> or,
> 
> when will you learn

          there are no words sai can string together to describe the all-consuming, fierce love he has, for the way sasuke makes his throat tighten and his stomach flutter, his heart stop, his breath catch, the way the simplest touches and gestures and movements can leave him totally fixated, hungry. 

          all he ever wants to do is kiss him breathless, make him laugh, light up his eyes and see the edges of a smile on his lips. he wants to hold his hands, settle a hand on his waist, he wants to drunkenly dance with him in the kitchen in the small hours of the night and wake up next to him and kiss him, morning breath and all. he wants to love him and he wants to be loved in turn, and he doesn’t know what’s so fucking  _hard_  about that. 

          silence greets sasuke’s statement, where there would usually be a blasé  _oh, you can see the future?_  there is only a heavy gaze, dark eyes serious, examining and filing away every fine detail. he takes sasuke’s hand, shifts his gaze to their interlocked fingers, the scars on his knuckles. a soft sound – a sigh, a despairing groan – escapes him, and then a humorless chuckle.

          “only if you let yourself,” he says, finally. “for me, this is. it.” there’s something ripping up his insides, but his eyes are dry and his voice is firm. soft. “that doesn’t have to be  _ **…**_ anything other than what it is. but. i don’t know how to let go, so. only if you let yourself.”


End file.
